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Dream is completely unprepared for what it’s like to actually live with George.
They’ve been talking about it, constantly, for almost two years now, especially since Sapnap moved in. They’d talked about George’s sleeping habits, his desire for attention, his lack of cooking skills, all of it. It’s been such a common topic among the three of them that Dream was sure that George moving in would be seamless, even unnoticeable.
However, somehow, along the way, Dream must have missed something. Because now, now, he’s staring at the boy in his kitchen in the middle of the afternoon, completely dumbfounded.
George just woke up. It’s evident from his hair, messy and sticking up straight in some places, and his face, still sleep-pink and puffy. He’s in a big t-shirt, the neck of which is stretched out, falling to reveal a collarbone. He’s also wearing gym shorts, too long and baggy, and Dream finds himself transfixed on his knees, for some odd reason.
George is focused on the mug he’s just pulled out of the microwave, bobbing a teabag up and down in the hot water. He doesn’t notice Dream hovering in the doorway until Dream clears his throat, loud, and says, “I didn’t know you drank tea.”
George looks up, blinks at him slowly, twice, and shrugs. “I sometimes do.”
“Oh.”
George looks at him blankly for a beat, then turns back to his tea. Seemingly happy with it, he gets milk from the fridge. One splash of milk. Next, he gets sugar. One spoonful of sugar.
Belatedly, Dream realizes how familiar George is in his kitchen. How Dream didn’t buy the tea and sugar, and Sapnap sure as hell didn’t, so George must have. How George is holding a mug branded with a European football team, that he must have brought with him from London.
Belatedly, Dream realizes that George lives here. That this is George’s home, their shared home, and has been for the better part of a month.
“Why are you just standing there like a freak?” George asks, breaking Dream away from his epiphany. He’s leaning back against the counter, sipping his tea. He’s pushed his hair back off his forehead.
“I—I—” Dream starts, then stops. How does he explain his sudden realization without also exposing his racing heart and his shaky hands, the welling emotion in his chest and the back of his eyes?
“Nothing.” He races back to his room.
-
They’re watching, of all things, Harry Potter. Dream isn’t even positive which one this is—he’d wandered into the living room to find George curled up on the couch, watching it in the dark.
“Why’re you watching this?’ Dream had asked, and George had shrugged, half hidden under his hood and blanket. “Just feeling nostalgic,” he’d said.
Dream had sat down next to him, and now an hour later, he’s switching between paying attention to the movie and scrolling Twitter.
He’s pulled away from his timeline with a sharp sniffle next to him. His head perks up as he turns to look at George.
“George, you okay?”
Another sniffle.
“Are you crying?” Dream grins, his instinctual response to this being glee. When George doesn’t answer, and instead just sniffles again, however, it quickly turns to concern. And a bit of confusion.
“George, look at me. Are you okay?”
George chokes out a wet laugh, burying his face in his hoodie sleeves. “Shut up,” he says.
Dream scooches closer to him on the couch without thinking, pulling at his arms to reveal his face. “Why are you crying, haven’t you seen this movie a million times?”
George, to his surprise, relaxes under Dream’s hold, allowing his hands to be pulled away. Instead, he hides his face in Dream’s shoulder. Dream tenses, minutely, and stays silent, as if scared of stopping this from happening somehow.
“I always cry when I watch these movies,” George says after a moment, “I don’t know, it’s just so… emotional. Nostalgic.”
Dream, slowly, lifts a hand to George’s hair, runs his fingers through it gently. “I didn’t know that,” he says, and he really doesn’t mean to sound so tender when he does.
“Whatever,” George says in reply, and he pulls back. Moment over.
He doesn’t scooch away from Dream on the couch however, and Dream doesn’t dare move a muscle. They watch the rest of the movie in silence, pressed together side by side.
-
Dream is editing, and George is on Dream’s bed behind him. Not an unusual event, though it is unusual that it’s past midnight and George hasn’t slunk back to his room yet. It’s also unusual that Dream can’t hear George’s phone playing TikToks or Twitter videos.
He pulls his headphones back off one ear, and spins around in his chair.
He sees George’s phone first, left abandoned on the edge of the bed. Then he sees George.
George is asleep, curled up on his side with his hands tucked up under his chin. His dark hair is splayed across Dream’s pillow, and George’s legs, clad in grey sweatpants, are partly tangled up in Dream’s bedsheets. His mouth is agape, slightly, pink pink lips.
Dream swallows, harshly, and methodically saves and closes out of his editing software, takes off his headphones, puts his monitors to sleep, and walks over to George. He sits, cautiously, on the edge of the bed, and puts a hand on George’s shin. His pants leg is bunched up, and his pinky brushes bare skin.
Dream shakes him, gently, and says, “George. George. George, wake up.”
George blinks awake slowly, looks at Dream through fuzzy eyes, and closes them again, ignoring him.
Dream huffs out a small laugh. Shakes George again. “Hey, idiot, do you want to go back to your room?”
George looks at him again, this time with eyes that look annoyed, that Dream would dare interrupt his sleep twice in a row. He shakes his head, a resolute no.
Dream just looks at him, dark dark eyes and freckles and all, and they’re stuck at a sort of impasse.
Dream lets himself breathe, slow, measured, and rub his hand on George’s shin, up and down in a slow motion.
“Okay, stay,” he says.
George smiles, just slightly, and wiggles further into the bed, getting comfy. Dream is about to turn out the light, move around to the other side of the bed to get in, when George suddenly grabs his wrist.
“Wait,” George says, “I need socks.”
Dream furrows his brows, looking down at George in confusion. “You need socks?”
George nods, slowly, like Dream is being the obtuse one here. “Yes. I always sleep in socks.”
“Okay,” Dream says, drawing out the word. “So go get socks.” A pause. “And then you can come back.”
George scoffs and settles even deeper into Dream’s bed. “No.”
Dream stares at him, and when George doesn’t move again, says, “Okay, sleep without socks then.”
George’s mouth drops open, and he looks completely affronted. “Dream! Please give me some socks, please.”
Dream laughs, shaking his head in slight disbelief, and relents immediately. He walks over to his dresser, “Fine, princess.”
He finds a matching pair of socks, and walks back to George, who is still laying under the covers but has stuck his bare feet out into the air, waiting.
Dream scoffs, “Am I supposed to put them on you, too?”
George licks his lips. A pause, and then— “Yes. Obviously.”
Dream swallows. Stares at George’s bare feet. Squeezes the socks in his hand, swallows again. “Okay,” he says, too softly.
He sits on the bed, and gently takes one of George’s feet in his hands. The skin is soft to the touch, and smooth. He looks at George’s pale foot in his hands, and then makes eye contact with George. George’s cheeks are flushed red, and he realizes that his face is also hot. This is so weird.
Gently, he works the sock onto George’s foot, adjusting the sock after so that it fits right around his toes. George wiggles them, and he feels it under his fingers.
Okay, next foot. Dream allows himself to run one finger on the underside of George’s foot, along the arch, and George’s foot twitches. He puts the other sock on, just as carefully. Then, he holds both of George’s feet in his hands, staring down at them.
“Dream,” George says softly, and Dream jerks his head up to look at him. They look at each other for what feels like a long time, and Dream feels his heart beating wildly in his chest.
“Thank you,” George says, still soft. “Now get into bed.”
Dream nods, and obeys silently. He turns out the light and gets into bed.
It takes him a long time to fall asleep.
-
Dream wakes up to a face full of fluff and sweetness.
He comes to awareness slowly, piece by piece. First, warm pressure over his legs, his chest. Next, soft fabric bunched under his hands, an even rhythm of breathing under his touch. Then, soft puffs of air on his neck. Lastly, he realizes that his face is pressed into George’s hair, breathing in his shampoo.
He breathes in, deep, and stretches, tilting his head back into his pillow, blinking up at the ceiling. His muscles flex under George, where he has an arm slung across Dream’s chest and a leg overtop of his. He lets his hands pet up and down George’s back.
George grumbles, and shifts, waking up now too.
“I like how your shampoo smells,” he says.
“Creep,” George murmurs, sleep still caught in his throat. “It’s honey flavor, I think.”
“Flavor,” Dream says with a small laugh, in his chest. George’s arm moves in response, holding tighter for a second before relaxing.
Dream moves, ignoring George’s grumbling, shifting down on the bed so their faces are side by side, looking at one another. George wrinkles his nose at him.
“Hi,” Dream says, smiling.
Hi, Dream,” George replies.
Dream looks at him, for a moment, before the words fall out, “I still can’t believe you’re here.”
George just looks back, and doesn’t say anything, so Dream continues.
“I mean, yeah, of course you’re here, right? And we were waiting for so long, and it took a lot of planning, to be fair, so of course I know you’re here, but you’re also, just… really, like, here, you know?“
George is smiling at him, now, trying to hide it in the press of his lips. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“I just, I just, I didn’t expect it to feel like this.” Dream says.
George licks his lips, then bites the bottom one. Lets go. “Like what?”
“So much,” Dream says in a breath. “You feel like so much.”
“Dream,” George says, the word equally as weighted.
Dream’s jaw clenches, and he can’t tear his eyes away from George’s. His heart is pounding in his chest, and George must feel it where his hand still rests there.
Maybe this was always where they were going to end up.
“George,” Dream says, faintly, finally.
George breathes once, more of a sigh, and looks up at the ceiling. He looks back at Dream, and rolls his eyes. Then he screws them shut, and finally fixes them on his hand, over Dream’s heart.
His internal battle ceases, and he says, “I used to have the biggest crush on you.”
Dream’s world stops spinning, just for a second.
He chokes out, “What? When?”
George continues as if he hadn’t spoken. “Quackity told me I should tell you. Get it—get it out there. So, there.”
Dream can hear the blood roaring in his ears.
“When did you have a crush on me?” He asks again, desperate to know, afraid of the answer.
George closes his eyes and doesn’t say anything for a few moments. Dream, distantly, feels him shaking slightly against him.
“Since—since—for—for always.” He gets out, like it physically pains him to admit.
“George,” Dream says, a whisper. There’s nothing else to say, really.
But—wait. “When—When did you stop having a crush on me?”
George opens his eyes, looks at him, and Dream knows. George, who so rarely allows himself to be vulnerable, looks at him, and Dream knows.
“George,” Dream says again, but he makes himself continue. “You are… There’s—”
Maybe this was always where they were going to end up.
“There has never been anyone but you, not really.” Dream says, and saying it is like letting go of a weight that he didn’t even know he was shouldering.
“You’re so much, George,” he says, looking into George’s dark dark eyes, pleading with him to understand. “Everything.”
“I am?” George says, and the way he says it is like a knife to the heart. Small, hopeful.
“Can I kiss you?” Dream asks, and the way they fall together was inevitable.
-
This is George, Dream reminds himself, later, when he’s wrapped around George’s back, afternoon sun beating down on him from the window, George sleeping again.
This is George, his best friend, who moved across the world to be with him. Who drinks tea, sometimes, and cries at movies because they are nostalgic. Who sleeps with socks on, always, and uses honey-scented shampoo. Who is here, really, finally.
He squeezes George tighter in his arms, presses a kiss to the back of his neck.
“Dream?” George says groggily, half-waking. Already falling back asleep.
“George,” he says.